Testimonials

“I have not known Sadie long, but from the outset of the OU/UKLA Teachers’ Reading Group Training session in June I was impressed by her enthusiasm, commitment and professionalism. Subsequent to that half day she has shown herself to be a highly effective communicator on Twitter, designing a superb summary of the day that we have, with her permission, hosted on the site. In addition, since then she has, with remarkable speed, created a flier about her forthcoming TRG, connected to relevant folk, and entered the OU website reading communities’ competition. I have no doubt she has very considerable energy and passion.”

Professor Teresa Cremin, Professor of Education (Literacy), The Open University

“Sadie’s passion for promoting literacy is evident through her fantastic work to promote reading and writing for pleasure across her school. I had the absolute pleasure of working with Sadie on our Young City Poets project this year. She participated with enthusiasm and ensured the whole of Year 5 had the opportunity to benefit from an inspiring class visit to Tower Bridge and a workshop with a professional poet. Sadie coordinated the project in an exemplary manner, including publishing the children’s work in a celebratory anthology. The children clearly enjoyed their writing and took a great deal of care over their final poems, many of them writing multiple pieces for inclusion in the anthology. This was no doubt due to Sadie’s hard work and commitment to ensuring that the children all had a positive experience of and the opportunity to write for a real audience.”

Faye Lant, Programme Manager, National Literacy Trust

“Sadie’s dedication to ensuring the very best experiences and opportunities for the emerging readers and writers in her class is reflected in the fact that she has chosen to join 2 full day courses at CLPE this year alone, in addition to attending our ‘Building a Literate School’ conference in Bristol and submitting an application to be part of our Power of Pictures Research Project (due to take place in 2018/19). However, attending training alone won’t make a difference, which is why it is so exciting to see substantial evidence of what happens in the classroom after the training is over. Sadie is a reflective, thoughtful and enthusiastic practitioner who took what was shared on our Inspiring Writing training and brought the suggestions in the teaching sequence to life, leading to a wide range of creative teaching and learning experiences, opportunities to develop reading skills and the chance to write for multiple audiences and purposes.”

“It has been a pleasure to meet and work with Sadie, whom I first met when she attended training on Inspiring Writing in KS2 delivered by a colleague at our centre in Southwark. The enthusiasm and reflection in her practice, of which I had an inkling then, were evident when our paths crossed again in the spring at Building a Literate School, our own literacy conference held in Bristol. Sadie attended a workshop I led on Effective Spelling in a Reading Rich Curriculum. I was genuinely impressed to see how much she had gleaned from the workshop and so soon been able to implement in her own classroom. Underpinning that course, and at the heart of her practice, is a belief that high quality children’s literature is the silver bullet in teaching English, and that the creation of a classroom that fosters linguistic curiosity and playfulness is central to developing readers and writers. Sadie is constantly seeking to increase her subject knowledge and takes complete personal responsibility for her CPD. She is also a fabulous collaborator, always keen to identify and more importantly to share good practice on her much frequented social platforms. I always look forward to hearing the outcomes of initiatives, with which she involves herself with such passion, energy and commitment.”